Matthijs, Hans (d. after 1618)

Hans Matthijs (Matthijsz, Matthysen) was from about 1580 an elder of the High German Mennonite group at Haarlem, Holland, who later joined the Waterlander congregation. It seems that he was present at the disputation held at Leeuwarden in 1596 between the Reformed minister Ruardus Acronius and the Mennonite Elder Pieter van Ceulen; for in a letter dated Leeuwarden, 14 December, 1596, and addressed to the noted Waterlander Elder Hans de Ries, then at Emden, Germany, he wrote about this dispute, of which he expected little result. In 1608 he played a somewhat unclear role in a quarrel caused in the United Waterlander-High German congregation of Haarlem by the controversies of Leenaert Clock and Denijs van Hulle. Concerning his person and activity there is little information. A letter found in the [[Amsterdam Mennonite Library (Bibliotheek en Archief van de Vereenigde
Doopsgezinde Gemeente te Amsterdam)|Amsterdam archives]] (II, 2, No. 656) seems to indicate that he was living at Leeuwarden in 1612, an elder of the local congregation. In 1613 he published Brief om overghelevert te warden aen de leraren der Vlaemscher Mennoniten . . . (Haarlem, 1613). In the same year he was one of the delegates at the Waterlander conference held at Workum, Friesland, to consider disciplinary measures against Rippert Eenkes. If the name Hans Martens, found in a report of 1618 (Inv. Arch. Amst. II, 2, 662), refers—as is probable—to Hans Matthijs, he was still living in 1618 and active in solving the matter of Rippert Eenkes.